Remember those Little Thickburger commercials from last year? Riffing off that, Hardee's launched an ad generator app so fans could create their own Thickburger comparisons.

The company expected maybe one or two to shine, but it turns out about 16 spots turned out to be broadcast-quality. (Though when you think about it, it's a pretty tough formula to screw up: [Big thing. Little thing.] Extra points for wordplay.) See them here.

"And we didn't even offer them a million dollars. Or anything for that matter," Hardee's added, puffing its chest out for extra effect.

With help from Cactus, ONE Step focuses on protecting the health of young children by encouraging smoker parents to go outside before lighting up.

The narration is soothing and the message doesn't direct smoking wholesale, although the smoke dragons and flesh-eating ravens -- which malevolently circle and eventually engulf the kiddies -- make things just uncomfortable enough.

We'll step outside, and we don't even have kids. Though this doesn't provide a gameplan for what to do when little kids walk by, but hey, those ones aren't yours.*

DIRECTV reminds us all of its relevance (...?) with help from fictional rival Cable Corp Inc. In this latest installment of boardroom bumbling, Cable Corp decides to battle DIRECTV with a new tagline: "Get Youthenized!"

CollegeClickTV.com hopes to encourage more kids to get a college education -- and possibly get into football? -- by broadcasting soothing pro-college messages, spoken by President Obama, on network TV.

Hear everyone's favourite political personality wax poetic about the merits of an education -- and football -- while a static image reads, "And now a message about... COLLEGE ...the best investment that you can make." CollegeClickTV's URL appears at the end of each clip.

On Super Bowl Sunday Hyundai launched "Angry Bosses," an ad that depicted corpos all over the world angrily shouting Hyundai! in various states of aneurysm-inducing rage.

At the end, a calm voiceover goes, "Win one little award, and suddenly everyone gets your name right. It's 'Hyundai', like 'Sunday'."

Never mind the screamers in the video. That last line, "It's 'Hyundai', like 'Sunday'," has incited the righteous indignation of at least one man, "Bernard in CT," who believes the idea of rhyming "Hyundai" with days of the week was his idea.

You know how old people always dance to, well, old music? That's because it's the music they grew up with. They didn't have rock, hip-hop, trance, disco, new age and they certainly didn't have Jumpstyle.

According to this Duval Guillaume-created commercial for the Agricultural Marketing Board of Flanders, "People always dance to music from their youth." We see a loving old couple dancing to some old tune and then...quick cut...to two dudes doing Jumpstyle with the tag, "So you know what's awaiting you. Start drinking milk."

Did we or did we not tell you eight months ago this dance craze would soon appear in an ad? Oh yes we did, brotha!

Angela and I learned Jumpstyle today. If you're lucky, you'll get to see us do it at the next ad conference. It should be good for a laugh.

For Dante's Inferno, an Electronic Arts video game, G-Net Los Angeles got into bed with Psyop. The natural result is an ad we suspect might be more lush than the game itself.

We could be wrong, though. Any English major will tell you Dante had a helluva good time describing Hell, and the work he did merits equal dedication from agencies, production firms and game developers alike. Still, this is just one more reason why future generations will be reading fewer books: you think CGI's had its way with women? It's bringing literature to its knees.*

Going back to the ad: like we said, it's gorgeous, but probably could've done without the toothy worm things. It's just too dental-visit-gone-wrong. And while we understand every good Hell scenario needs a bad-ass horned demon master, the one here looks too much like a Balrog.

Once something invites a comparison to LotR, even accidentally, it's gonna have trouble standing up on its own. Even if it is the bloody Inferno.

Uh Oh. The Wimpy Swimmers of America cause group is about to get their undies in a twist. As will, no doubt, Bob Garfield. Yes, after its Speedwalker ad offended gays (and Bob Garfield), which we never quite understood, Snickers is out with another Mr. T ad which takes on wimpy "toe dippers" who cower at the thought of swimming in water that isn't a perfect 85 degrees.

Anyway, to best target its market of casual at-home cocktailers, the French company is broadcasting this ad from its website and in banners on sites like MySpace. Our best guess is that they thought, "Drunk people engage in slightly malevolent, poorly thought-out hijinks all the time, so what if our snacks did too?!", and went zealously from there.

If the International Fund for Animal Welfare had their way, Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey wouldn't have elephants in their circus. You wouldn't find them in zoos. And they certainly wouldn't be making landings like a jumbo jet returning from an overseas flight.

But, that's exactly what happens in this commercial which informs us that animals are not souvenirs.

But, wait. Is it OK to use elephants in television commercials? Or is that just effective CGI at work?